118 
SHE 
lands are appropriated to keep it in repair. Besides the 
church, here are places of worship for Methodists, Presby¬ 
terians, and Quakers. Shepton Mallet has long been famous 
for its manufactures of woollen cloth and knit stockings. 
These now afford employment to upwards of 2000 persons 
in the town and vicinity. The town is governed by a con¬ 
stable. Shepton Mallet in ancient times formed part of the 
manor of Pilton, which King Ina gave to the abbey of Glas¬ 
tonbury, A. D. 705. Soon after the conquest, it came into 
the possession of the barons Mallett, from whom it derived 
the latter part of its name. After various changes, the manor 
was divided into two moities, one of which came to the 
crown, and the other was annexed to the duchy of Cornwall, 
to which it still belongs. This town is noted as the birth¬ 
place of Hugh Inge, D.D., archbishop of Dublin, and chan¬ 
cellor of Ireland ; Dr. Walter Charleton, and Simon Browne. 
The parish contains 1129 houses, and 4638 inhabitants. 
Market on Friday, and an annual fair on 8th August; 5 
miles east of Wells, and 115 west-by-south of London. Lat. 
51. 12. N. long. 2. 38. W. 
SHEPTON MONTAGUE, a parish of England, in So¬ 
mersetshire; 2J miles south of Bruton. Population 371. 
SHER, a town of Hindostan, province of Malwah, belong¬ 
ing to the MahraUas. Lat. 23. '58. N. long. 76. 55. E. 
SHERARD ( William), a very learned and munificent 
botanist, on whom the titles of prince and Maecenas of 
botany have been, more justlythan usual, bestowed, was the 
son of George Sherwood, (for so it seems the name was 
written by the father,) of Bushby, in Leicestershire. He was 
bom in 1659; educated first at Merchant Taylors’ School, 
and then at St. John’s College, Oxford. He cultivated the 
friendship and correspondence of the most able men on the 
continent, such as Boerhaave, Hermann, Tournefort, Vail- 
lant, Micheli, &c. He is universally believed to have been 
the author of a 12mo. volume, entitled “ Schola Botanica,” 
published at Amsterdam in 1689, and reprinted in 1691 and 
1699. This is a systematic catalogue of the Paris garden. 
Its preface, dated London, Nov. 1688, is signed S. W. A., 
which the French writers have interpreted Samuel Wharton, 
Anglus, under which name the book occurs in Hailer’s 
“ Bibliotheca Botanica,” vol. i. 643. But as no one ever 
heard of such a botanist as Wharton; and the preface in 
question displays the objects and acquisitions of one of the 
first rank, who could certainly not long remain in obscurity, 
the above initials are presumed to mean William Sherard, to 
whom alone indeed, with or without a signature, that pre¬ 
face could belong. Its writer is described as having attended 
three courses of Tournefort’s botanical lectures, in 1686, 87, 
and 88, all which years, he says, he spent at Paris. In the 
summer of 1688 he describes himself as having passed 
some time in Holland, collecting specimens of plants from 
the rich gardens of that country and getting them named by 
Professor Hermann himself, who allowed him to peruse the 
manuscript rudiment of his “ ParadisusBatavus,” to examine 
his herbarium, and to compose a Prodromus of that work, 
which is subjoined to the little volume now under our con¬ 
sideration. All this can apply to Sherard only, who became 
the editor of Hermann’s book itself, and who in its preface, 
dated from Geneva in 1697, appears under his own name, 
and speaks of himself as having long enjoyed the friendship 
and the communications of that eminent man, whose judg¬ 
ment and talents he justly commemorates, and of whose 
various literary performances, as well as of his botanical 
principles, he gives an account. 
Sherard communicated to the Royal Society, in 1700, a 
paper relative to the making of Chinese or Japan varnishes, 
which is printed in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxii. 
The information which it contains was sent by the Jesuits to 
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and probably obtained by our 
author at Florence. 
The most ostensible and splendid service to botany, though 
it for a long time yielded but little fruit, was rendered by the 
will of Dr. William Sherard, who left 3000/. to found and 
support a botanical professorship at Oxford. 
The herbarium of Sherard is perhaps, except that of Lin- 
S H E 
naeus, the most ample, authentic, and valuable botanical 
record in the world. In it may be seen original specimens 
from Tournefort, and all the writers of that day, named by 
themselves, accompanied by remarks, or by queries scarcely 
less instructive. He collected also copies of original draw¬ 
ings, from botanists whose specimens were not to be had, 
such as Plumier. The most rare, and even unique, books 
are to be found in his library, as the first volume of Rud- 
beck’s Campi Elysii. All these precious collections are still 
in good preservation, though the noble stone building, ori¬ 
ginally constructed to receive them, was sacrificed a few 
years since to public convenience, that the adjoining street 
might be widened. 
SHERARDIA [so named by Dillenius, in honour of his 
patron William Sherard, LL. D. consul at Smyrna], in 
Botany, a genus of the class tetrandria, order monogynia, 
natural order of stellatae; rubiaceas (Juss.J —Generic Cha¬ 
racter. Calyx: perianth small, six-toothed, superior, per¬ 
manent. Corolla one-petalled, funnel-form; tube cylindri¬ 
cal, long; border four-parted, flat, acute. Stamina: fila¬ 
ments four, placed at the top of the tube. Anthers simple. 
Pistil: germ twin, oblong, inferior. Style filiform, bifid 
at top. Stigmas headed. Pericarp none. Fruit oblong, 
crowned, separable longitudinally into two seeds. Seeds 
two, oblong, marked at the apex with three points, convex 
on one side, flat on the other.— Essential Character. Co¬ 
rolla one-petalled, funnel-form, superior. Seeds two, three¬ 
toothed. 
1. Sherardia arvensis, field or blue sherardia, or little 
field madder.—All the leaves in whorls ; flowers terminating. 
Root annual, with many reddish-brown fibres. The whole 
plant branched, diffused, rough and hairy, from four to 
seven inches high.—Native of many parts of Europe, among 
corn and on fallows: flowering during the greatest part of 
the summer. 
2. Sherardia muralis, or wall sherardia.—Root annual. 
Stems decumbent. Leaves ovate-lanceolate, six in the lower, 
four in the middle whorls, two only together at top. Flowers 
in pairs on their proper peduncles, pale, flat. Fruits oblong, 
hispid. Seeds bowed a little, with little or no crown.— 
Native of Italy. 
3. Sherardia fruticosa, or shrubby sherardia.—Leaves in 
fours, equal; stem shrubby.—It is one of the very few plants 
which the island of Ascension affords. 
SHERATON, a hamlet of England, county of Durham; 
11 miles north of Stockton-on-Tees. 
SHERAVEND, a town of Ghilan, in Persia, on the 
Caspian. 
SHERBET, or Sherbit, a compound drink, first brought 
into England from Turkey and Persia, consisting of fair 
water, lemon-juice, sugar, amber, and other ingredients. 
Another kind of it is made of violets, honey, juice of 
raisins, &c. 
The word sherbet, in the Persian language, signifies 
pleasant liquor. 
SHERBORNE, or Sherbourne, a market-town and 
parish of England, in the county of Dorset, pleasantly 
situated, partly on the acclivity-of a hill, and partly in the 
fertile vale of Blackmore. It is a place of great antiquity, 
and is supposed by some to have been a station of the 
Romans, but more probably arose from a religious house 
founded here soon after the conversion of the Saxons to 
Christianity. It was anciently distinguished as the seat of 
an episcopal see, having been constituted such A. D. 704. 
Herman, the 26th bishop, attempted, without success, to 
remove its seat to Malmsbury; but succeeded, in 1075, in 
transferring it to Old Sarum. About this time the place had 
declined in importance, but in the time of Lleland it seems 
to have considerably recovered, as he describes it as the most 
■frequented town in the county, and that in which the 
woollen trade was turned to the best account. This branch 
of business, however, afterwards declined, and the manufac¬ 
ture of buttons, haberdashery goods, and bone lace, was 
introduced in its stead. These trades have also decreased, 
and the silk and linen manufactures form now the chief 
occupation 
